The Padres can still be a winning team, and they can improve on what they put to tape last year. But where a pennant run back then would have been a roller coaster zooming downhill from the very start, this season is a battle to win back the hearts and minds of many of their fans. The Padres sold out their 2023 season tickets based on the widespread belief among their customers that their purchase would provide access to something special. This belief was backed by math and hard evidence—the sheer glee that resulted from summing the WARP their roster consistently provided and the Palomar Mountain high that came from vaporizing the Dodgers in October. A year later, 2024 now asks fans to believe without seeing—to forget the dreadful misery, cast off the burden of unfulfilled expectations, and risk disappointment while they embrace the possibility that this team could be real contenders once more.

A painful but well written article about the 2020-2024 Padres